COVID-19 anxiety-coping strategies of frontline health workers in a low-income country Malawi: A qualitative inquiry

Abstract

For this qualitative study, we adopted a two-wave data-collection approach involving 68 frontline healthcare workers at two geographically distinct central hospitals in a low-income country Malawi. We used in-depth telephone interviews and survey emails to explore the sources of COVID-19 anxiety and corresponding coping actions among frontline health care workers. The findings reveal four main sources of work-related anxiety among frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 crisis: (1) on-the-job risks, (2) infrastructure and technological deficits, (3) human-capital deficits, and (4) public stigma. Furthermore, the findings reveal that these workers have been coping with sources of COVID-19 anxiety by using strategic coping actions related to the five themes of (1) health, (2) self-assertion, (3) perception, (4) identity, and (5) social support. Healthcare management can thus manage frontline healthcare workers’ COVID-19-related anxiety by mitigating the sources of such anxiety as well as incorporating insights from employees’ strategic coping actions into organizational stress management programs.

Keywords:

• Work-related anxiety
• coping actions
• COVID-19
• frontline healthcare workers
• low-income country
• Malawi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

1 https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/malawi/overview